Counter in ActionScript 3.0 with...PHP or? - php

Question

I am doing this flash banners for multiple clients and one major request is to have some sort of counter so they know how many times the banner has been clicked.
I know how to do it in ActionScript 3.0, I make a simple var:int and i increase it +1 when a click is made on the banner. What do I do with the value of this var(say its 121) where do I store it online so its safe and can be changed by multiple flash banners(as3).
But how do I save this information so next time when the banner is loaded(on diffrent webpages) the number of clicks is whatever it was last time it was loaded.
Should I look into PHP for that ? I have no clue how to do this... some examples, tutorials, whatever works... would be much appreciated.(I am a designer, not programmer...please dont speak php-ish, or you know... :D)
I've googled a bit, and found some help, but i am still confused, and much of it its not AS3, I'm thinking maybe stuff has evolved a bit since the stuff that I found(2008)...
Thank you very much.

Answer 1

You'd have to store (and fetch) the value somewhere - either in the DB, in a text-file, ...
I'd go search for a tutorial on PHP+MySQL. If you don't like PHP-ish, you're probably better of finding another solution though :p
Example tutorial: http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql

Answer 2

You need to store the data you want be retrievable/update-able from multiple clients, to be stored on a server.
You can use any server side language with a database.
Server Languages : PHP, ASP.net, JSP, ColdFusion
Database : MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2 etc..
Use whatever combination you are comfortable with.
In general:
You have a web app that increments the counter in the database
call the page using URLLoader from your AS3 banner.
Database
counter_table
-------------
counter INT
PHP File
$db = mysql_connect('localhost', 'mysql_user', 'mysql_password');
mysql_select_db('database_name');
mysql_query('UPDATE counter_table SET counter = counter + 1');
AS3 Banner
// url request with your php page address
var scriptRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://www.example.com/script.php");
// loader
var scriptLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
// load page to trigger database update
scriptLoader.load(scriptRequest);
Do you also want to retrieve the value of the number of clicks in Banner ?

Answer 3

Easy solution (really not the best :) You should use one of the other answers.. anyways, make a php file that reads txt file containing the count of visits.. and in your flashbanner just call the php file. It'll add one hit per call..
PHP:
<?php
/**
* Create an empty text file called counterlog.txt and
* upload to the same directory as the page you want to
* count hits for.
*
*
* #Flavius Frantz: YOU DONT NEED THESE:
* Add this line of code on your page:
* <?php include "text_file_hit_counter.php"; ?>
*/
// Open the file for reading
$fp = fopen("counterlog.txt", "r");
// Get the existing count
$count = fread($fp, 1024);
// Close the file
fclose($fp);
// Add 1 to the existing count
$count = $count + 1;
// Display the number of hits
// If you don't want to display it, comment out this line
//echo "<p>Page views:" . $count . "</p>";
// Reopen the file and erase the contents
$fp = fopen("counterlog.txt", "w");
// Write the new count to the file
fwrite($fp, $count);
// Close the file
fclose($fp);
?>
Example code from: (google: php counter file) http://www.totallyphp.co.uk/text-file-hit-counter
Code is not tested, but looks ok. I only commented just a little..